September 2008

Occupational Therapy Action -award of the year to scriptwriter Pekko Pesonen

Scriptwriter Pekko Pesonen was granted TOIs Occupational Therapy Action of the year 2007 -award. Pesonen wrote a miniseries “Veljet” (“Brothers”) that tells a story of a 16-year old Pyry and his brother Otto, who suffers from ADHD. In the series it was clearly seen how much impact occupational therapy - or lack of it - has in everyday life of a family. Occupational therapy being visible in mainstream tv-series in Finland is showing increasing awareness and valuing of the profession.

Toimit – team

Toimit-team was founded to act as a co-operative team in TOIMIA – project of public health work. TOIMIA-project aims to make measuring and terminology in the rehabilitation fieldsmore unite among various professions and strengthen networks.

Toimit-team will gather information on assessment and measuring tools used in Finland and see if is there a need for something more. The team will also make guidelines for publishing and research of assessment and measurement tools for future.

New Governmental guidelines for Social and health care: KASTE-programme 2008-2011

KASTE-programme is a new Governmental plan for social and health care services. The plan also defines greatly the research done in National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES), the National Public Health Institute, the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and the State Provincial Offices and the priorities in their work in 2008–2011. The objectives of the programme are: 1)the municipal inhabitants’ involvement will increase and their social exclusion will be reduced 2) the municipal inhabitants’ wellbeing and health will increase, inequalities in wellbeing and health diminish 3) the quality, effectiveness and availability of services for the municipal inhabitants will improve and regional inequalities will be reduced. The programme aims to achieve the objectives by prevention and early intervention, ensuring the sufficiency of staff strengthening skills and by social and health care services functioning as an integral whole and effective models of operation.

New Executive Director for Finnish Association of Occupational Therapists

Arja Kivi will follow Ulla Vehkaperä as Executive Director for Finnish Association of Occupational Therapists starting 1.9.2008.

TOI has since 2001 employed a full time executive director and since 2006 a part time secretary.

March 2008

Health care professionals made it into the headlines of  Finnish media in autumn 2007. The general wage negotiations and the demographic changes in the labour market were the main topics.

The last round of negotiations saw a moderately good rise of salaries in fields where females represent a majority. Occupational therapists are counted among these in Finland.

There is a great concern for sufficient competent labour especially in the social and health care sector as a large number of professionals will retire in the near future. The ageing population also challenges the social and health care sector to develop home care and rehabilitation services. In the Occupational therapy field these challenges are seen as a possibility to open new doors and expand OT services. OTs might, for instance, have a significant role in the process of incorporating more disabled persons into the labour market as an answer to the growing need for labour.

Coming events

TOI’s Annual General Meeting will be held April 26, 2008. In addition to the statutory AGM items

TOI’s Educational Policy program for 2008-2012 will be adapted at the meeting. Also the OT of the year and the receivers of this year’s awards will be announced.  The Association’s new visual image and new webpages will be launched the same day.